NEISHABOUR, Khorasan Prov. -- A head-on collision on Sunday between two cars on a Mashhad-Neishabour road in Khorasan Province left three dead and seven injured, the Neishabour police department announced.

"The accident was caused by the carelessness of one of the drivers while overtaking another vehicle," police said.

They noted last week, some 13 people have lost their lives as a result of accidents on the Neishabour-Mashhad road.

Iranian roads are some of the most hazardous in the world while traffic experts blame the high rate of accidents on dilapidated vehicles and drivers' carelessness.

Run-down vehicles, insufficient emergency road aids, lack of communication facilities to swiftly relay information on traffic-related accidents and inadequate emergency centers on roads are the main causes of the high death toll from road accidents in iran, traffic experts say.